Macarons, yes they are a pest until you know how to make them perfectly. They just become clock work. But because I have a lot of entries for french macarons I thought it might be easier if I make an entry where you can find the basic plain method.
Begin with your almond meal, nice and dry and caster sugar.
Pulse your almond meal until it is small enough to go through a sift. PLace powdered sugar and almond meal in a bowl.
Place egg whites in a clean bowl (make sure they are at room temperature) with clean beaters, beat th egg whites until frothy. Add a pinch of cream a tatar (this stablises the egg whites)(about 2 mins) Add your caster sugar all at once to the egg whites.
Continue beating the egg white mixture until thick, pale and goregous. To test this you can turn your bowl upside down over your head and the mixture should stay.
Gradually add the powdered sugar and almond meal in 3 stages until both mixtures are well incoperated.
Once all the dry ingredients are incoperated into the meringue, add your desired colour. Continue mixing the mixture until the right consitency is reached.
You know you have the right consitency if you lift your spatula and let the mixture drop back on top of the mixture in the bowl.
If the dropped mixture sinks right back into the mixture without being idendfiable than you have the right consitency.
Another test is if you lift the spatula and a ribbion of mixture is formed.
In this video it shows how fluid the mixture should be dropping off your spatula.
Line your baking sheets with a template and baking paper.
Begin piping the mixture out of a piping bag (and preferbly a 1A tip, but I have been a bit cheap of the baking tools lately)
Once all the macarons are piped, bang the tray aganist a hard suface a couple of times, just to knock the air bubbles out.
Allow the macarons to sit at room temperature and form a skin. A skin is when you can touch the macaroon slightly and no sticky mixture is left on your finger.
Bake the macarons in a preheated oven for 7-11 mins depending on your ovens strength. Macarons are not suppose to brown.
Congratulations you successfully made macarons. You deserve a pat on the back because these are one of the most delicate pastries out!
In pastry world, there are no recipes because everything needs to be precise. I use a formula to make my macarons. It will never fail you.
Recipe:
French Macarons
Using egg whites as the base, adjust the amounts of the dry ingredients accordingly.
Egg Whites = 1
Almond Meal = 1.3 x 1
Icing Sugar = 1.6 x 1 Caster Sugar = 0.8 x 1
So if you have 85g of egg whites this is how you would work it out,
Egg whites = 85g
Almond Meal = 1.3 x 85g = 110.5g
Icing Sugar = 1.6 x 85g = 136g
Caster Sugar =0.8 x 85g = 68g
This formula ensures what size egg you have, it won't affect your recipe if you pull any old one off the internet.
Method
-Begin by preheating your oven to 160 degrees. Having an oven thermometer really helps when making these biscuits.
-Pulse your almond meal very slightly until it can go through a fine mesh strainer.
-Sift your powdered sugar and almond meal into a bowl. Set aside
-Place your egg whites in a clean dry bowl and with dry beaters whisk until the egg whites are frothy(about 2 mins) Add your pinch of cream a tatar and then dump all your sugar into the egg whites. Beat the egg whites on high speed until thick and glossy.
-Add your dry ingredients to your meringue in 3 stages, folding the mixture into eachother until well incoperated.
-Add colouring if desired. But insure these are gel colourings (brought from a cake decoarting store) not food colourings from the supermarket. There base is water so it will water down your mixture.
-Mix the mixture until the right consitency is reached. See photos for refrence to right consitency.
-Place into a piping bag and pipe out macarons on baking paper with a template underneath.
-Bang the baking tray on a hard surface a couple of times to remove any air bubbles. Set aside
-Allow the macarons to sit at room temperature until they develop a skin. You know when a skin is formed when you can touch the macarons gently and no sticky substance remains on your finger.
-Place the macarons in a preheated oven and bake for 7-11mins.
-Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet before removing, otherwise they might break.
-Ice and decoarte as desired.
Well I hope you made it through that task. I'm telling you it's not an easy one, but the feeling you get when you sucessfully make these is undescribable.
Until next time lovelies..
